The classic poetry library

Love Poems & Classic Poetry

The great poems of the world, from Petrarch and Shakespeare to Dickinson, Baudelaire and Rilke, collected in one quiet place to read.

42,393 poems
3,432 poets
8 languages

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Eight literatures

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Start with the masters

Beloved Poets

William Shakespeare 1564–1616

Emily Dickinson 1830–1886

Edgar Allan Poe 1809–1849

John Keats 1795–1821

Lord Byron 1788–1824

Victor Hugo 1802–1885

Charles Baudelaire 1821–1867

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 1749–1832

Rainer Maria Rilke 1875–1926

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer 1836–1870

Francesco Petrarca 1304–1374

Luis de Camões 1524–1580

All 3,432 poets →

From the collection

Poems to Read Today

A charm invests a face

A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld.
The lady dare not lift her veil …

Emily Dickinson English
May

The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall, …

Sara Teasdale English
How Do I Love Thee

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight …

Elizabeth Barrett Browning English
Love and Death

Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
Remember nothing, as the blowing sand …

Sara Teasdale English
I Am Not Yours

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon, …

Sara Teasdale English
I Love You

When April bends above me
And finds me fast asleep
Dust need not keep the secret …

Sara Teasdale English
I Thought of You

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder …

Sara Teasdale English
I Would Live in Your Love

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that
recedes; …

Sara Teasdale English
Sonnet 46

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar, …

William Shakespeare English
Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, …

William Shakespeare English